On the Road Again – The Lost Coast

I took off at 8 AM Sunday, driving through Petaluma to get on Hwy 101.The Nicasio lake is full to the brim, the hills a verdant green — both from late rains.The fog of the beach gradually gave way to the sun of inland. Orange splashes of poppies amidst the green … Roadkill — during the day: 2 skunks (neither smelling), a fox, a racoon, 2 deer,  today 2 squirrels; must be spring fever … giant piles of redwood logs in Cloverdale lumberyard … Hwy 101 narrows down to 2 lanes north of Willits, it’s relaxed, v. little traffic, you can make a U-turn in middle of road … it clears the head to get out of the Bay Area where everything by comparison seems congested, every inch spoken for and/or ridiculously high priced … south fork of the Eel River is turquoise … getting into crackpot roadside territory with rock shops, bears-carved-out-of-chainsaws shops, kind of like the reptile farms that used to be along Hwy 66…

Ended up camping at the Mattole rivermouth, then drove through back roads today to Shelter Cove … tomorrow 8 AM I’m getting a ride back to Mattole, will then backpack along beach 30 miles back to Black Sands beach near Shelter Cove, hoping to find driftwood beach shacks to photograph … have decided to expand and reprint the driftwood shack book … just had great fish and chips down at Shelter Cove boat ramp…